May/June

Evolving horizontal well plans and frac designs are driving advances in the design of connections. Connections used today have to run through laterals that can be up to three or four miles, while under high pressures. That is leading to ongoing efforts to improve connection reliability...

To improve the efficiency of its asset management and operational productivity, Noble Corp announced in February that it had partnered with GE to outfit four of its high-specification rigs with an advanced data analytics system that can detect anomalies and potential failures weeks in advance. Seven key critical systems are now being monitored – the BOP system, power system, drawworks, mud pumps, top drive, thrusters and dynamic positioning system. Noble expects that it can achieve improved reliability and up to a 20% reduction in the maintenance spending on these systems as early as the second half of this year, according to Bernie Wolford, Senior VP Operations...

What’s the state of the offshore rig market today? In four words, it’s not that bad. Sure, rig demand hasn’t risen as much as it was forecasted to do. When rigs do get drilling contracts, they don’t make much money. There are a lot of stacked rigs sitting around. There’s still a need for more contractor consolidation...

At the beginning of 2017, things were starting to look up for the North American onshore market. The rig count had been rising ever since it bottomed out in May of the previous year. It seemed like 2017 would be a year of recovery, and indeed it was...

The oil and gas industry’s goals of reducing nonproductive time (NPT) and increasing production of unconventional resources are driving the evolution of hydraulic fracturing technologies. Especially as operators start to hit the natural physical limits of unconventional production, the need to optimize the fracking process has grown stronger, James West, Senior Managing Director for Oil Services, Equipment and Drilling with EvercoreISI, said. The optimization process differs by play, but overall, companies are looking for better well and fracture placement, as well as different sizing and staging of frac clusters...

Over the past 18 months, there have been several revisions to the guidance, specifications and standards released by the American Petroleum Institute (API) relating to BOP and well control equipment (WCE). Previous industry incidents and issues prompted these revisions, as well as a more holistic approach to the design, inspection and traceability of this safety and environmentally critical equipment...

The wider use of robotics, remote controls, real-time remote monitoring systems, artificial intelligence and other techniques are setting new standards of performance. The culmination of these engineering and technological efforts have yielded highly efficient, advanced-technology rigs. However, how should we develop and manage the support systems to leverage this modern drilling technology? Do we have the people, processes, tools and infrastructure needed to successfully apply these technologies?...

The beauty of unconventional drilling in North America today is that it is highly repetitive, which gives operators the opportunity over and over again to optimize their processes. The flip side of that coin, however, is that progress is typically incremental because the entire business of North American onshore drilling is already so highly efficient...

Adjustments in well design, drilling practices and fluid strategy have allowed Occidental Petroleum Corp (Oxy) to more than double its feet-per-day drilled in the New Mexico Delaware Basin over a five-year period from 2012 to 2017...